Sam Biddle

Quora can be a place to discuss race relations, poorly. Quora can be a place to explain your company's position in the eternal geo-political battle between good and evil. Or it can be a cry for help: "I'm pretty sure my reality is stuck in a bubble of tech startup culture."

Quora bills itself as nothing less than "your best source of knowledge"—not your dad, not …
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It's a simple question from a Valley denizen—"What are some things I'd be shocked to learn about the outside world?" It's probably, bleak as it is, an earnest one. The answers are a buffet of what we already know to be true: these people are living under a plexiglass of dome filled with cash, fantasy ideas, and delusion.

A selection of "shocking" facts about the world beyond Palo Alto—this is how the rest of us live:

There's a whole range of perspectives that go underrepresented in Silicon Valley. There are a lot of women out there. Older folks.

That when you say you worked 80 hours this week, most people will think you are a workaholic. Not realizing that was a short week.

That most people spend all day at work trying to get home to their families, and friends, and don't consider sleeping at the office a night well spent.

A lot of people can wear shorts in temperatures of 60 degrees Fahrenheit. I knew that our weather is fantastic and that other weather has extremes. But I was shocked that our idea of a winter day in late February is beach weather to most people.

People can and do separate their lives from their work. Until I visited a friend whose parents watched TV with us after coming back from their day at work, I did not think it strange that my parents are expected to work so much at home.

Houses that cost over $1 million are rare, even in other wealthy countries.

Even elsewhere in the United States from the bay area, unless you're in a big city, don't be surprised to see people using older flip phones and PC's. They remain far more economically sensible for most people. Still, I think the biggest difference to be seen is abroad.

Finally, a fellow named Rich Rogers steps in with something that might genuinely shock the startup sensibility:

You are part of the vanguard of a segment of society that is generating massive wealth for a small group of people while putting in place a culture that has led to the greatest increase in energy consumption in the history of the world—with the possible exception of the automobile.

Another Quora-er echoes:

Most humans belong to one of a few main cults other than the VC cult. That one's actually pretty tiny by comparison to some of the big ones, pretty much localized to a few big cities (SF/Valley in particular), and pretty much unknown to most of the wider population except as the stuff of the occasional wild-eyed myth.